hero, charmed by the consent of the heroine, promises her life-long fidelity.[1] "The best medicine of the physicians is not so good for a man, in any ill, as a faithful and beloved wife."[2] There are, in the poem, very striking love stories, especially about the fidelity and sacrifice of lovers, but one woman says that a wife turns away from a husband who has cherished her as soon as he gets into trouble. A little trouble, it is said, outweighs in the minds of women long happiness; they have fickle hearts, and no great virtues can win them to fidelity.[3] The law of India is full of hostile expressions against the female sex; it not only puts them in a position of inferiority to men, but even refuses them the position of persons endowed with independent rights. Manu[4] says: "It is the nature of woman to seduce man in this world"; "women are able to lead astray in this world, not only a fool, but even a learned man, and to make him a slave of desire and anger." A woman is to be always under tutelage; she can have no property, give no testimony, maintain no suit, make no contracts, and conduct no affairs. The books, however, contain also expressions of praise of women, and these fundamental principles are traversed to some extent by more humane ideas. "Where women are honored there the gods are pleased, but where they are not honored no sacred rite yields reward"; "in that family where the husband is pleased with his wife and the wife with her husband, happiness will assuredly be lasting."[5] In the early philosophical period women were freely admitted to hear and share in the discussion of theological and philosophical questions.[6]
The law-givers conceive of woman as a necessary evil.
